Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan, former defence minister, last night testified he was not to blame for abandoning 1,250 Canadians and Afghan allies in the 2021 collapse of Afghanistan. Cabinet to date has not explained why Canada’s ambassador and staff fled Kabul aboard a half-empty military aircraft as Taliban seized control of the city: "We put every effort possible." READ MORE
MPs yesterday described New York Consul Tom Clark as a "confirmed liar." The Department of Foreign Affairs would not say if Clark will resign regarding complaints he deliberately misled the Commons government operations committee over the purchase of an $8.8 million Manhattan penthouse at taxpayers’ expense: "He wanted to live like a king." READ MORE
Parliament should penalize Google and Facebook if they fail to identify and isolate “undesirable or questionable” information on the internet, says a Commons heritage committee report. A majority of Liberal, New Democrat and Bloc Québécois MPs complained of “societal harms arising from unregulated social media platforms.” READ MORE
Chinese-brand solar panels continue to be imported into Canada despite subcontractors' past links to slave labour, according to court records. Parliament five months ago passed a law requiring that major importers ensure goods are not slave-made. READ MORE
Parliament must find methods to revoke passports of citizens under investigation for espionage, says a Commons committee. The recommendation follows the disappearance of suspected spies now believed to have fled to China: "I mean, these are Canadian citizens." READ MORE
The Mounties have written off millions’ worth of vehicles as scrap metal, new records show. It follows cabinet’s 2021 suspension of police vehicle auctions as a public safety measure: "The RCMP has the largest law enforcement land fleet in North America." READ MORE
Cabinet yesterday would not release a statutory cost-benefit report detailing direct costs of a proposed cap on oil and gas emissions. “You owe it to Canadians,” Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs (Lakeland, Alta.) told the Commons natural resources committee: "If Canada did not have contributions from oil and gas right now, Canada would be in a recession." READ MORE
Father was a man of few words. He’d left school in Ontario to take up Saskatchewan land with his brothers, then left to fight at Vimy and Passchendaele. He suffered afterwards from the effects of gas attacks in the trenches. I remember a hot summer day, driving in the 1935 Ford near our place when Father pointed to a relief work gang scrubbing out brush in the ditches: “Do you want to do that or do you want to go to school?” he asked. At 17 I took the train from Melville to Ottawa to study journalism at Carleton College. It was my first time on a train. I sat up the whole way.
